1. Oprah Winfrey won several beauty pageants, including Miss Fire Prevention in Nashville and Miss Black Tennessee.
2. For the talent portion of the Miss Black America pageant, she interpreted an agreeable rendition to Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.
3. At the age of 14, she gave birth to a baby boy. He died shortly after birth.
4. She was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi.
5. In her early teenage years, she was sent to a juvenile center for wayward girls because she was out of control. However, she was sent back home due to lack of space at the facility.
6. After being in kindergarten for only two days, she wrote to her teacher: “I don’t think I belong here cause I know a lot of big words.” The teacher agreed, and she skipped to first grade.
7. She has 17 Daytime Emmy Award wins.
8. The news director of a Baltimore TV station, which was one of her first TV jobs, asked her to change her name to Suzy.
9. Winfrey trained to run her first marathon in 1994.
10. She graduated from one of the historically black colleges and universities, Tennessee State University, with degrees in speech communications and performing arts. She graduated with honors.
